What is science?

Welcome to Science! Until now you learnt about the world in EVS. From Grade 6, Science is a subject of its own.

Your book, Curiosity, says that science is a way of thinking, observing and doing things to understand the world we live in, and to uncover the secrets of the universe. Think of it as a big adventure: we ask questions, explore, and try to understand how things work.

The most important thing you need for this adventure is curiosity: the itch to know. Why do the stars shine at night? How does a flower know when to open? That wondering is curiosity, and it is where the book gets its title.

Science is everywhere. It is in tiny grains of sand and in huge mountains, in a leaf of grass and in a whole forest, deep in the ocean and far out in space, in the kitchen and on the playground. Even an ordinary pen has science in it: it is made of plastic (that is chemistry), and when you drop it, it falls to the floor (that is physics). Science is not something that happens only in a laboratory.

The book says science is like a giant jigsaw puzzle that never ends. Every new discovery adds a piece. Each new piece leads to more questions, so there is no limit to what we can find out. Think of travel: first horse carts, then engines that burnt coal, then cars on petrol and diesel, now electric cars, and more is still to come.

Sometimes we find that a piece was put in the wrong place and has to be moved. New discoveries can change what we understood before. That is not a failure: it is how science gets better.